I thought the numbers were one of the things that made it fun. Having a low ICQ number showed you were an early adopter, much like having a short URL or twitter name.

Yeah, fun for the million or so first users, not so much for the next 2 billion.

I specifically remember hating those numbers (because I always forgot mine) and being spitefully relieved to switch to MSN Messenger when that came out.

just like giving out an old compuserve e-mail address.

Yeah, it made it fun for the early adopters, and less fun for everyone else. That's not much of a strategy, considering how few early adopters there are.

Yeah! When I wrote the Ask HN, I totally forgot about it. But now that I remember, it hurts!

I actually liked the numbers, even remembered mine years after stopping to use ICQ.

yeah, it was all those 0's and 1's. They were in the wrong order!